Federal Signal Corporation

Greetings and welcome to the Federal Signal Corporation fourth quarter earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce Felix Boshin, Vice President, Corporate Strategy and IR. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and welcome to Federal Signal's fourth quarter 2025 conference call. I'm Felix Boschen, the company's Vice President of Corporate Strategy and Investor Relations. Also with me on the call today is Jennifer Sherman, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Ian Hudson, our Chief Financial Officer. We will refer to some presentation slides today, as well as to the earnings release which we issued this morning. The slides can be followed online by going to our website, federalsignal.com, clicking on the investor call icon, and signing into the webcast. We've also posted the slide presentation and the earnings release under the investor tab on our website. Before I turn the call over to Ian, I'd like to remind you that some of our comments made today may contain forward-looking statements that are subject to the Safe Harbor language found in today's news release and in Federal Signals filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These documents are available on our website. Our presentation also contains some measures that are not in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles. In our earnings release and filings, we reconcile these non-GAAP measures to GAAP measures. In addition, we will file our Form 10-K later today. Ian will start today with more detail on our fourth quarter and full-year financial results. Jennifer will then provide her perspective on our performance, current market conditions, our multi-year growth initiatives, and go over our outlook for 2026, before we open the line for any questions. With that, I would now like to turn the call over to Ian.

Thank you, Felix. Our financial results for the fourth quarter and full year of 2025 are provided in today's earnings report. Before I talk about the fourth quarter, let me highlight some of our full year consolidated results for 2025. Net sales for the year were $2.18 billion, a record high for the company, and an increase of $319 million or 17% compared to last year. Organic net sales growth for the year was $205 million or 11%. Operating income for the year was $340.9 million, an increase of $59.5 million or 21% from last year. Net income for the year was $246.6 million an increase of $30.3 million, or 14% from last year. Adjusted EBITDA for the year was $438.9 million, up $88.3 million, or 25% compared to last year. That translates to a margin of 20.1% this year of 130 basis points from last year. GAAP diluted EPS for the year equated to $4.01 per share of 51 cents per share, or 15% from last year. On an adjusted basis, we reported record full year earnings of $4.23 per share, of 89 cents per share, or 27% from last year. Orders for the year were $2.22 billion, an increase of $374 million, or 20% from last year. Backlog at the end of the year was $1.04 billion, an increase of $45 million or 5% from last year. For the rest of my comments, I will focus mostly on comparisons of the fourth quarter of 2025 to the fourth quarter of 2024. Consolidated net sales for the quarter were $597 million, an increase of 100 or 27% compared to last year. Organic net sales growth for the quarter was $85 million or 18%. Consolidated operating income in Q4 this year was $83.5 million, up $13.4 million or 19% compared to last year. Net income for the quarter was $60.8 million, an increase of $10.8 million or 22% from last year. Consolidated adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $119.4 million, up $30.1 million, or 34% compared to last year. That translates to a margin of 20%, an increase of 110 basis points from last year. GAAP diluted EPS for the quarter was $0.99 per share, up $0.18 per share, or 22% from last year. On an adjusted basis, EPS for Q4 this year was $119 per share, an increase of 29 cents per share, or 33% compared to last year. Orders for the quarter were $647 million, up $201 million, or 45% from last year. Orders in Q4 this year included $132 million of acquired backlog. In terms of our fourth quarter group results, ESG's net sales were $504 million, an increase of $108 million, or 27% compared to last year. ESG's adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $109 million, up $26.1 million, or 31% compared to last year. That translates to an adjusted EBITDA margin of 21.6% in Q4 this year, up 70 basis points from Q4 last year. ESG reported total orders of $566 million in Q4 this year, an increase of $301 million, or 55% from last year. SSG's fourth quarter sales were $93 million, up $17 million, or 23% compared to last year. SSG's adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $23.4 million, up $7 million, or 43% from last year. SSG's adjusted EBITDA margin for the quarter was 25.2% of 360 basis points from last year. SSG's orders for the quarter were generally in line with last year at approximately $82 million. Corporate operating expenses in Q4 this year were $26.5 million compared to $10.5 million last year, with the increase primarily due to a $13 million increase in acquisition and integration-related expenses. Turning now to the consolidated statement of operations, where the increase in net sales was a $36.7 million improvement in gross profit. Consolidated gross margin for the quarter was 28.4%, up 30 basis points compared to last year, as a percentage of net sales of selling, engineering, general, and administrative expenses for the quarter were down 110 basis points from Q4 last year. During the fourth quarter of this year, we recognized $13.3 million of acquisition-related expenses, up from $300,000 in Q4 last year. The increase included an aggregate expense of $6.8 million to increase the fair value of contingent consideration associated with the acquisitions of HOG and Standard. as well as expenses incurred in connection with the acquisition of New Way. Other items affecting the quarterly results included a $1.3 million increase in amortization expense, a $1.7 million interest expense, a $200,000 reduction in other expense, and the non-recurrence of a $3.8 million pre-tax non-cash pension settlement charge recognized in the prior quarter. Income tax expense for the quarter was $17.8 million, an increase of $4.9 million from last year, with the year-over-year change largely due to higher pre-tax income levels and the recognition of fewer discrete tax benefits in the current year quarter compared to the prior year. Our GAAP effective tax rate for full year 2025 was 24%, including discrete tax benefits. For 2026, we currently expect a tax rate of approximately 25%, excluding any discrete tax benefits. On an overall GAAP basis, we therefore earned 99 cents per diluted share in Q4 this year, compared with 81 cents per share in Q4 last year. To facilitate earnings comparison, GAAP earnings per share for unusual items recorded in the current or prior periods. In the current year quarter, we made adjustments to GAAP earnings per share to exclude acquisition and integration related expenses debt settlement charges, and purchase accounting expense effects. In the prior year quarter, we also excluded the pension settlement charge that I just noted. On this basis, our adjusted earnings in Q4 this year were $1.16 per share, compared with 87 cents per share in Q4 last year. Looking now at cash flow, where we generated $97 million of cash from operations during the quarter, an increase of $7 million or 7% from Q4 last year. That brings our full-year operating cash generation to $255 million, an increase of $23 million or 10% compared to last year. Early in the fourth quarter, we executed a new five-year credit facility, replacing the $800 million credit facility that was previously in place. During the fourth quarter, we completed the acquisition of Newway for an initial payment of approximately $413 million. And in early January, we completed the acquisition of Mega for an initial payment of approximately $45 million. Our current net debt leverage ratio remains at a comfortable level, even after factoring in recent acquisitions. We ended the quarter with $501 million of net debt an availability under our credit facility of $925 million. With the increased borrowing capacity under our new credit facility and our improved cash generation, we have significant flexibility to invest in organic growth initiatives, pursue additional strategic acquisitions like Mega, pay down debt, and return cash to stockholders through dividends and opportunistic share repurchases. On that note, we paid dividends $5 million during the quarter reflecting a dividend of 14 cents per share. That concludes my comments, and I would now like to turn the call over to Jennifer.

Thank you, Ian. We are proud of our record-setting fourth quarter performance, which included new quarterly records across net sales, adjusted EPS, and adjusted EBITDA, thanks to the outstanding results from both of our operating groups. Within our environmental solutions group, we delivered 27% year-over-year net sales growth, a 31% increase in adjusted EBITDA, and a 70 basis point improvement in adjusted EBITDA margin. Contributions from acquisitions, higher production levels, and continued price realization were all meaningful year-over-year contributors. Given continued strong order levels and an extensive pipeline of internal market share expansion initiatives, we remain focused on building more trucks across our family of specialty vehicle businesses and reducing lead times for sewer cleaners and four-wheel sweepers. These efforts to increase throughput across our manufacturing sites contributed to double-digit percent increases in net sales across several ESG product verticals, including sewer cleaners, safe-digging trucks, street sweepers, metal extraction support equipment, and road marking and line removal trucks. From a capacity perspective, the combination of large-scale capacity expansions that we completed between 2019 and 2022, good access to labor, and continued investments in several productivity enhancing projects position us well to profitably absorb more volume into our existing footprint. As in recent years, we expect approximately half of our annual CapEx expenditures in 2026 focused on various growth initiatives, with the other half focused on maintenance investments. Shifting to aftermarkets, where demand remains strong, aided by contributions from acquisitions. For the quarter, aftermarket revenue increased 20% year-over-year, primarily driven by higher demand for aftermarket parts, increased service activity, and rental income growth. We are identifying new, attractive aftermarket parts growth opportunities across the enterprise and are highly energized by the long-term prospects of our internal Build More Parts initiative, whereby we are vertically integrating certain parts production. Over a multi-year timeline, this initiative will allow our teams to drive increased recurring parts revenue streams while expanding margins. Additionally, our aftermarket teams are working diligently to integrate our most recent acquisitions. Shifting to our safety and security systems group, the team delivered another excellent quarter with 23% top-line growth, a 43% increase in adjusted EBITDA, and a 360 basis point improvement in adjusted EBITDA margin. This improvement was primarily driven by a combination of volume and increases for public safety equipment in the U.S. and in Europe, proactive price cost management, and realization of certain cost savings. Our SSG teams are laser-focused on new product development initiatives while surgically targeting under-penetrated customer cohorts and regions, a strategy that is yielding share gains. Additionally, we expect the recent addition of a fourth printed circuit board manufacturing line at our University Park facility to drive additional efficiency improvements in 2026. Lastly, we had another strong year of cash conversion, 55 million of cash generated from operations. For the full year, our cash conversion was 103%, slightly ahead of our annual target of 100%. Before I shift to current market conditions, I would like to spend a moment to update you on our refuse truck distribution strategy in Canada now that we've completed the acquisition of Newway. As many of you know, we have extensive internal experience in the refuse market as we have been distributing third-party Labrie refuse trucks through our Joe Johnson equipment sales channel for more than 20 years, primarily in Canada. This existing internal refuse service infrastructure and sales expertise was an important synergy consideration as part of the New Way transaction. Prior to the acquisition, New Way had not penetrated the Canadian market at scale, creating unique market share growth opportunities for us starting in 2020. As such, beginning in the fourth quarter of 2025, we stopped taking orders for third-party Labrie refuse trucks and instead began selling New Way through our Joe Johnson network in Canada. Given these dynamics, we have provided additional disclosures in this morning's earnings presentation outlining our historical third-party Libre refuse orders and sales levels to facilitate more appropriate comparisons. We will continue to provide this reconciliation as we move through 2026. From a financial perspective, we expect to deliver the remaining $80 million of third-party Libre backlog over the next four quarters and eventually wind that backlog down to zero. As we wind down the sale of these lower margin third-party refuse trucks and increase new waste sales in Canada, we expect to realize margin tailwinds in 2027 and 2028. Shifting to current market conditions, on an underlying basis, excluding the impact of acquired backlog and third-party refuse orders, Q4 orders increased $64 million or 14% year-over-year with improved demand across both our publicly funded and industrial product lines. Within product lines, we experience particular strength in sewer cleaners, safe digging, and vacuum trucks fueled by continued demand for infrastructure and water projects in North America and rising safe digging adoption within the U.S. Similarly, We are seeing especially constructive demand environments for our metal extraction support equipment and road marking and line removal products. Lastly, I wanted to provide some context around our backlog, which stood at $1.04 billion at the end of fourth quarter, up approximately 5% year-over-year. When I first became CEO, we put in place a multi-year growth strategy aimed at building a best-in-class specialty vehicle an industrial equipment growth company, while decreasing the cyclicality of earnings streams. As we've executed this strategy both organically and through M&A, the composition of our product portfolio has changed over time. Consequently, our business has become less backlog-intensive compared to historical periods. In fact, many of our least cyclical and fastest-growing product lines, such as aftermarket parts, are not really backlog relevant at all. To illustrate this impact, in 2025, net sales of our backlog intensive products, which include vacuum trucks, street sweepers, metal extraction support equipment, refuse trucks, road marking and line removal trucks, comprised approximately 45% of our sales compared to more than 50% in 2015. While we internally continue to view backlog as an important metric, and our current backlog provides excellent visibility for certain product lines throughout the next six to 12 months. The overall importance of backlog relative to enterprise-wide forward sales has decreased over time as we have decreased the cyclicality of the business. As a reminder, consistent with our long-term growth strategy, Through cycles, we target annual low double-digit top-line growth split roughly evenly between inorganic and organic growth. Looking ahead to 2026, we are laser-focused on driving three critical multi-year growth initiatives forward that will benefit the company for years to come. First, the successful integration of our recently acquired businesses. Second, new product developments. And third, continuing to strengthen the power of our platform. Let me share a couple of highlights. First, our teams are moving full steam ahead with the integration of Newegg. As a reminder, we remain committed to achieving our targeted 15 to 20 million in annual synergies by the end of 2028, with approximately half of those synergies tied to cost savings and the other half tied to various sales synergies, including the increased penetration of the Canadian market dealer development, aftermarket parts optimization, sales channel alignment, and new product development. Consistent with the outlook we provided in our September acquisition announcement call, we are expecting the acquisition of Newway to be approximately adjusted EPS neutral in 2026, inclusive of a preliminary estimate of intangible asset amortization expense. Second, We were pleased to close the acquisition of Mega Equipment last month. Mega is a manufacturer of parts and equipment for the metal extraction support equipment sector. We have been following them for a number of years, having identified the company as a highly complementary asset to our ground force and tow haul businesses. We believe Mega can accelerate several of our strategic growth initiatives within this space. As an example, Mega will substantially increase our reach into certain under-penetrated geographic regions such as South America. As we optimize our combined sales channel between Ground Force, Toho, and Mega, we see important cross-selling opportunities similar to the playbook we have been deploying since 2022. We also see incremental opportunities to accelerate Mega's aftermarket parts business which has historically represented about 25% of Mega's net sales, and we have identified several operational benefits, including production savings and freight cost opportunities. From a financial perspective, Mega generated approximately $40 million in net sales over the last 12 months, and we expect the acquisition to be modestly accretive to cash flow and EPS in 2026. Third, we continue to invest in our internal centers of excellence to widen our competitive advantage within the niche markets that we operate. In 2026, we see specific opportunities to drive several sales, new product development, and deal optimization issues forward across our vacuum trucks, street sweepers, multi-purpose maintenance vehicle, refuse collection, road marking, and safety and security systems verticals. As part of this strategy, We acquired certain assets and territory rights in Texas in the fourth quarter, which we think will allow us to increase market share for several key product lines. Turning now to our outlook. With the ongoing execution against our strategic initiatives, current demand backdrop, we are confident that we will have another record year in 2026. For the full year, we are anticipating net sales of between $2.55 billion and and 2.65 billion in adjusted EPS between $4.50 and $4.80 per share, notwithstanding an aggregate $0.16 per share headwind from higher acquisition-related intangible asset amortization expense and the normalization of our tax rate. At the midpoint, this outlook would represent another year of double-digit growth and the highest adjusted EPS level in the company's history. In line with our typical seasonal patterns, we expect Q1 net sales and earnings to be lower than subsequent quarters due to less aftermarket revenue capture. Lastly, we expect CapEx to be between $45 million and $55 million for the year, which includes enhancing projects. In closing, I want to express my profound thanks to all of our employees, suppliers, dealer partners, customers, and stakeholders who for a tremendous 2025. With that, we are ready to open the lines for questions. Operator.

Thank you. We'll now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. The confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up the handset before pressing the star keys.

One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Thank you. Our first question is from Tim Thien with Raymond Jackson.

Hi. Good morning. Can you hear me okay?

Yes. Good morning, Tim.

Hi. Hi there. Good morning. First question just on the called the midpoint of 2.6 billion in revenues. Apologies if I missed this. Is there a way to parse out I'm not sure if you updated what you're expecting in terms of new way and mega and other, you know, acquisition impacts, just trying to parse out organic versus, you know, relative to that 2.6 number.

Yeah, sure, Tim. I'll take this. So if you think of the guide, the revenue guide, obviously in the aggregate 17% to 20% – sorry, 17% to 22% year-over-year growth. Um, that's about five to 9% is organic and the rest would be, you know, contributions from new way and mega. So that, that's how it breaks down. And then, you know, the midpoint that's squarely in line with what we've delivered really since 2015, our organic growth has been a kegger of about 7%. So that's, that's squarely in line with, um, with the guy.

Yeah. Okay. Excellent. And then, um, just on the, the order trends and, and, um, I'm sure you have far from perfect visibility as to, you know, every order placed and what the motivation is behind it. But I'm just curious maybe what feedback, if any, you hear from dealers in terms of, or maybe how you're seeing that order board fill out, meaning are there any signs of maybe, you know, customers wanting to get ahead of a pre-buy, meaning, you know, more of those orders may be coming later in the year or just curious as to what, if anything, impact do you think that is having in terms of border activity? Thank you.

Yeah, I'll start with the pre-buy discussion. You know, we've seen, you know, there's been a lot of discussion around this. We have not baked any meaningful pre-buy into our guidance. We're going to continue to monitor it and we will be prepared to respond to it. So, you know, The other thing I would add there is publicly funded customers don't materially engage in pre-buying. So with respect to that part of the business, we don't think it would be a significant driver. Where we would see traction would be on those non-publicly revenue customers.

Understood. Thank you. Our next question is from Steve Barger with KeyBank Capital. Hey, good morning.

Thanks. Good morning, Steve. For the 5% to 9% organic for the consolidated guide, is that similar for both ESG and safety, or is one expected to outgrow organically versus the other?

Yes, Steve. ESG is expected to grow at a faster rate than SSG. SSG is probably more of a kind of a GDP plus type rate, but you would expect ESG to be kind of a larger contributor to organic growth.

Got it. And thanks for the reminder on how the mix of backlog dependent business is changing. So maybe a two-parter. First, is it safe to say that you expect book to bill above one for the business units that still depend on backlog for forward visibility?

So a couple comments there. As we previously talked about, our lead times are still extended for sewer cleaners and four-wheel street sweepers. We have been focused on build more trucks. I'm pleased to report that we made some really good progress during Q4. If you look at unit production combined to both Elgin and Vactor, it was versus Q4 of 2024. and up 13% for the full year. So we were pleased with that progress. So for those particular businesses, it would have a, you know, we would expect, you know, we're very focused on getting those lead times in that six to eight month range. We provided some additional information in the slides today regarding the impact of the $80 million third-party Labrie refuse trucks. We will not be taking orders for Labrie refuse trucks in 2026, and we'll be delivering those throughout the year. So we tried to separate that out for everybody so they understand the impact that will have. We will be taking orders for New Way, but it will take us some time to build up to those particular rates. over a multi-year period. So outside of those particular things, we would expect over a 12-month period, the backlog would be around 1.0, a little bit better. But we wanted to call out those two particular issues as people, as we move forward.

Yeah, that's great detail. Thank you. And then the second part, just a clarification. Do book and ship orders within any given quarter get reported in, or book and ship business, I should say, in a given quarter get reported in orders? And how do we think about rental and used equipment and how that flows through, just for clarification?

Yeah, the short answer, Steve, is yes. They do get reported in both orders and sales within the quarter. And, you know, we typically don't have much backlog for rentals, if any, because that typically, you know, you'll receive the request to rent, so that's probably an in and out within the quarter, so not a whole lot of backlog in the rental business.

Yeah, but rental would still show in orders, or is that just kind of a... Correct. Okay, got it.

Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Our next question is from Ross Barenboek with William Blair. Hey, good morning, Jennifer. Good morning, Ross.

Nice quarter here. Maybe just starting with a housekeeping item. Can you help parse out the 132 inorganic contribution to orders in the quarter? I understand some is backlog, some is going to be incremental orders that were secured once you owned the asset.

Yeah, Russ, that's just the backlog that we acquired on the date of the acquisition.

Okay. Can you give us a sense of what the inorganic order flow looked like to try to parse out the organic orders for ESG?

Yeah. I mean, the difference wasn't really material from what we've reported. If you strip out the acquired backlog, the delta wasn't material.

Okay. Well, I mean, how should I think about that, though, since you guys did start stocking inventory in Canada for New Way and presumably the rest of the United States?

We didn't do anything meaningful in the one month that we owned them.

Okay. Well, I mean, just kind of based on early discussions, do you get the sense that you're going to have a strong adoption rate with existing dealers that might be selling other third-party refuse trucks?

Right now, New Way has a number of strong dealers, and we're working with them. And we're in the JJE sales arm. We've hired a number of people. We're leveraging the existing infrastructure that's in place. We're training them on the New Way equipment. So they're still in early stages. We're excited about some of the opportunities that are out there. And then in certain areas, you know, we plan on strengthening that dealer network through either the JGE team or other additions to the network.

Okay. So, I mean, probably first quarter, though, like, I mean, kind of timeline on when we should start seeing a more meaningful contribution. It just seems a little odd that you would, you know, let the Labrie phase out. I guess you do have a backlog there. We shouldn't wait until the end or shouldn't expect until the end of the year for, you know, the overlap of replacing Labrie with Newey inventory, correct?

Yeah, we're taking orders since closing. And, you know, Newey has a number of strong dealers in place. There's a number of opportunities, and we're continuing to take orders. And our view on NewWay's contribution to the 2026 earnings has not changed, including the amortization. We expect it to be neutral.

Okay. All right. Well, thanks again, guys. I'll have that in queue. Thank you. Our next question is from Walt Liptock with Seaport. Hi, thanks.

Good morning. So I wanted to ask, I didn't catch it, Jennifer, in your remarks. You talked about the first quarter. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about what you're expecting seasonally and from production schedules so we can get our modeling right.

Sure. We expect, in terms of earnings, the cadence to be similar to the past in terms of 19% to 20%. With respect to orders, there could be this year, obviously, a new way. And part of first quarter hog and mega will be new. So there could be some change to the seasonality of orders. But in general, what I said in my prepared remarks is we would expect the cadence of earnings to be similar to the past.

Okay, great. And I wanted to ask you about new way and just the cost synergies now that you've had a chance to kind of do a full financial review and look at the operations. Are you going to be able to... do more with the cost synergies? And I wonder about 80-20, if that's something that you're going to, you know, give them time to integrate first and then start 80-20, or do you start doing that right away with the new way business strategies?

Yeah. So, you know, we identified the $15 to $20 million by 2028. That's about half cost and half revenue synergies. We have various teams that have been in place since we announced the acquisition in September that are working on those cost synergies and revenue synergies. 80-20 and operational optimization is absolutely a critical synergy. We have transferred one of our best 80-20 people Of our facilities, the general manager, that facility is now working directly with the new way team on 8020 opportunities.

Okay, great. Thanks for that. And just the last 1 for me was. Curious about the University Park, the 4th, the line that went in. You guys have been really successful with, you know. vertically integrating, and I wonder if this one is for demand that you already have, or is this kind of room to grow? Why did you have to add a fourth PCB line?

There are a couple drivers. First of all, the team did a super job, and we installed that line. We were actually a little bit ahead of schedule in Q4. So we look at it. It drives a couple things. Continued growth. It really accelerates new product development, It allows us to address customer needs, particularly within both our police and our signaling businesses. So, you know, the short answer is accelerating new product development. That seems, you know, a star in that particular area. And number two, it facilitates additional growth opportunities.

Okay, great. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Our next question is from Mike Sliske with DA Davidson.

Good morning, Mike.

Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I wanted to start off asking about MEGA and about NewWay. Can you share for us how 2025 fared within their own four walls as far as organic growth and those businesses in 2025, were those both growth businesses? And do you expect them, you know, organically to be, for themselves, growth businesses in 2026?

Yeah, I think with respect to mega, you know, we're obviously very excited about the combination of mega with the ground force and total businesses. I mean, Jennifer's remarks, she commented on how, you know, You know, Mega brings some things to the table that we didn't necessarily have before in terms of geographic expansion. So Mega's been on a, you know, they've had some nice organic growth in 2025. You know, we're expecting that to continue as we go into 2026. They had revenues of about $40 million in 25. You know, as we go into 26, we're expecting that to grow a little bit. As it relates to Newey, you know, obviously they were in the middle of a process, a sale process during 2005. So there was, you know, we didn't necessarily have audited financials, but the last audited financials that we had, they did 36 million of EBITDA and about 250 million of sales in 2024. As we talked about in September, we are expecting you know, them to be slightly lower in 2026, just because there's some kind of normalization of trends within that industry. So that's what we've implied, you know, in our guide for 2026.

Got it. Thank you so much. And then your comment earlier about expanding a little bit into South America was also very interesting. Was that just a comment about ground force and tow haul? or are there other amounts of business that you think could actually work as well in South America? Just any comments on kind of local sourcing, whether you have to have engine changeovers to kind of make that happen, because there's often some rules around locally sourced content when you try to get into South America.

Yeah, so my comments were focused on MEGA and Toho and Ground Force. We have partners that we work with in South America. MEGA has a very strong brand with respect to the chassis. So it's similar to how we export other ground force and toll haul products. But given the strong brand recognition of MEGA, the teams are excited about the synergies for both those other products.

Great. Just one last one for me. You had a busy 2025 for M&A. Just a sense as to the pipeline you think for 2026 and what areas you're looking to grow through intergalactic means ahead here.

Yeah. Our pipeline continues to be full. We're very focused on identifying companies, purchasing integrating de-lever and then repeat. With that being said, different teams work on different opportunities. We've mentioned previously that our SSG team is looking at a number of opportunities right now. We would expect that to continue. There are some other opportunities we're looking at with respect to specialty vehicles that involve different teams than the refuse team or the mineral extraction team. So, you know, M&A over the long run will continue to play a critical part in our growth, but, you know, you will meter according to bandwidth.

Okay. Outstanding. I'll pass it along. Thank you. Our next question is from Chris Moore with CJS.

Hey, good morning, guys. Good morning. Good morning. Great quarter, as always. You guys were obviously ahead of the curve early in COVID, expanding capacity, and certainly recognizing it depends on mix, but just trying to get a sense of roughly how much annual revenue Federal Signal can currently handle with the existing infrastructure.

Yes, we're currently running at about 70%. I would highlight that we added some additional capacity with New Way and MEGA, particularly New Way. We're excited about that capacity. Some organic growth initiatives that we're incubating right now that we expect will have multi-year benefits into 27 and 28. So, you know, I'll say what I say all the time. We are continuously tweaking our capacity at various facilities where we might do something that is, you know, less than $5 million type expansion. The teams have done a super job in terms of 8020, which one of the many benefits of 8020 is freeing up additional capacity. We've been able to add some additional capacity. We're leveraging some of the, as I mentioned, some of the opportunities a new way. I can give a great example in our dump truck body business. We had excess capacity in Pennsylvania. We now are producing dump trucks in a particular facility there. So, you know, I think we're in pretty good shape right now as we sit here to support our growth initiatives going forward.

Got it. Helpful. Maybe just one on NewWay. So you've talked about the NewWay acquisition being neutral to EPS in 26, you know, potentially adding, I don't know, 40 to 45 cents EPS in 28. I'm assuming based on prior... conversations and prior comments, that would be pretty back-end loaded for 2028. Is that the way we should be looking at that and also the, you know, kind of the margin progression from, you know, EBITDA margins from, you know, 14% to 15% to the 20% range?

Yeah, I think we talked about, you know, I think the place is with the $15 to $20 million of synergies that we identified by 2028, kind of evenly split between cost and revenue synergies. We'd expect those cost synergies to kind of be more evenly split as we move through that three-year period with the revenue synergies to be more back-end loaded. They take some time. If you think about, you know, for a good example is we're very focused on new product development for that particular team. We have a number of products in the work, and it will take some time to get traction, for example, on those particular initiatives.

Got it. That makes sense. And just any thoughts on the current tariff discussions?

Yeah, I think that we are fortunate because, as we talked about quite last year, We're in country for country, so they had a nominal impact. USMCA is important to us, particularly given the importance of our Canadian businesses, but we're not making any meaningful impact into the guidance that we provided earlier today.

Fair enough.

I will leave it there. Thanks, guys. Thank you, Chris. Our next question is from Greg Burns with Sedodia.

Good morning, Greg. The adjusted pro forma order number of $64 million, how much of that is organic, and what is the contribution from acquisitions in that adjusted number?

Yeah, I mean, I think what we've done, Greg, is we've stripped out the balance. require at the time of the acquisition. So that's the 14% year-over-year growth from Q4. The vast majority of that is organic.

Okay.

Almost all.

Okay. Okay, perfect. And then in your municipal publicly funded markets, I know there was a lot of – federal money coming post-pandemic, you know, into that market. I assume a lot of that's been allocated and spent. So is there any concern that we might see kind of a slowdown in those end markets?

Yeah, I'll start with, you know, as we've talked about before, we didn't see any meaningful contributions in, you know, I'm sorry, in 2024 or in 25 from those pandemics, infrastructure projects are still ongoing. We expect those to be ongoing for several years. Again, within that public funded revenue bucket, water taxes is an important part of that. That's our largest single product line. which supports purchases of sewer cleaners and other types of municipal vacuum trucks. And we find that to be a growing revenue stream. Our general municipal exposure would really be around street sweepers, some of our multipurpose tractors, a small portion of our public safety systems, and then a portion of refuse. So again, as we talked about in the prepared remarks, saw, you know, strong orders in Q4 for sewer cleaners, street sweepers. So, you know, again, we feel we've baked this into our outlook. And it is really, frankly, the diversification within that public funded revenue stream that is important to look at with respect to the order trends.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. There are no further questions at this time.

I would like to turn the floor back over to Jennifer Sherman for any closing remarks.

Thank you. Again, we would like to express our thanks to our shareholders, customers, employees, distributors, and dealers for their continued support. Thank you for joining us today, and we'll talk to you next quarter.

This concludes today's conference. We thank you for your participation. You may disconnect your lines.